Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/192

166 She carries with her

containing a "poison," the same whereof Christ made use in the Sepulchre, and which serves here to bring the dead back to life and to rejoin heads cut off from bodies. She goes to work thus:—

then taking the balm

Perceval stops her when she has brought back three of her men to life; she recognises in him her conqueror:

So long as she lives, Perceval shall be powerless to achieve his Quest. She wars against Gonemant by order of the King of the Waste City, who ever strives against all who uphold the Christian faith, and whose chief aim it is to hinder Perceval from attaining knowledge of the Grail. Perceval gets possession of somewhat of the wonder-working balm, brings to life the most valiant of his adversaries, slays him afresh after a hard struggle, in which he himself is wounded, heals his own hurt, and likewise Gonemant's, with the balsam. Compare now Campbell's above-cited tale, the Knight of the Red Shield. The hero, left alone upon the island by his two treacherous companions, sees coming towards him "three youths, heavily, wearily, tired." They are his foster-brothers, and from the end of a day and a year they hold battle against the Son of Darkness, Son of Dimness, and a hundred of his people, and every one they kill to-day will be alive to-morrow, and spells are upon them they may not leave this (island) for ever until they kill